Product warnings can provide consumers with handy excuses

November 25, 2007

When recent news stories announced the danger of lead in lipstick, I took notice. The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics tested 33 brands of red lipstick in September and found "hazardous levels" in a third of them. What does lead ingestion lead to? Well, no one will say that lead in lipstick causes major trouble in adult women, but the Boston Globe cited one expert who warned that regular use could result in "subtle neurological effects you can't trace back to a single exposure." Subtle neurological effects. Like, forgetting your e-mail password? Like drifting though the day in a haze? Like forgetting you already bought light bulbs and buying more? Like losing your new coat, forgetting your purse at home or running over curbs? I can now blame it all on neurotoxic lipstick! Suddenly, I'm not absent-minded. I'm just a hapless lipstick consumer. Already, a woman has filed a class-action lawsuit, and the plaintiff claims that a typical woman can ingest four pounds of lipstick during her life. Yuck. I can now use the lipstick defense for stupid things I do. This year offered plenty of opportunity for excuses. Every time you turned around, some consumer group released another product warning. In August, major toy manufacturers Fisher-Price and Mattel recalled millions of toys manufactured in China. Toys R Us recently discovered trouble with some vinyl baby bibs and stopped selling them. Target quit selling certain Thomas train toys. In September, a raft of other toys were recalled. Some were coated with lead paint. Some contained magnets that kids could swallow. The recalls encompassed toys as diverse as die-cast cars, Elmo stacking rings, Barbies and kids' garden spades. Consumer groups asked companies to recall even more items they said possessed high lead content. To top off the scare level, the Consumer Products Safety Commission this month recalled the popular Aqua Dots bead toy because, when swallowed, the beads produce gamma hydroxy butyrate, the date rape drug. Ingested beads could send kids into a coma or induce seizures or breathing trouble. Parents can either become distressed about recalls, or they can use them to advantage. Toy recalls provide parents an ideal excuse to purge accumulated toys from shelves and closets. The vast number of gadgets and baubles American kids collect is mind-boggling. Parents long to simplify, to trim down, to cut back. They want to end the habitual stockpiling of toys, but many seem powerless in the face of everyday low prices and freebie meal toys. Recalls provide that extra ammunition parents need to make a clean sweep. According to a recent New York Times story, toy makers are questioning "long-held assumptions about the safety of their products." Though we're glad for their soul searching, what do toy recalls mean for parents this Christmas? For some it might mean abandoning glitzy, well-marketed toys in favor of things kids really like to play with, like laundry baskets. Laundry baskets are boats, caves, hats and space ships. Kids throw balls across the room into them. Stuffed animals dive into them. Upside down, they are tables. Round ones roll across the room. You can buy a kid the latest flashing, musical, glaring, blaring toy - and spend a whole paycheck doing it - and an hour later he's back playing with a laundry basket anyway. For other parents, the recalls might mean shifting the focus of the holiday away from toys altogether, and onto something with substance, something that lasts a bit longer than a flimsy hinge or clasp. The next time a recall is announced, I'll simply view it as an opportunity. Donna Marmorstein writes and lives in Aberdeen. You can contact her at dkmarmorstein@yahoo.com.